The Bahamas National Statistical Institute (BNSI) recently released its second quarter labour force numbers which showed an unemployment rate of 9.3%, a decrease from 10.8% in the previous quarter.
Department of Labour Executive Manager, Quinton Laroda spoke with ZNS News about Grand Bahama’s contribution to the decreasing unemployment figures. He said, “we could see just from the feedback that we are receiving from the employers and from the labourers in Grand Bahama that things have improved and that more Bahamians are being placed with jobs and the job fairs are having a tremendous amount of success. One of the things that we note the success to is that businesses are coming back to us to partner with them to have more job fairs.”
The Labour Executive believes unemployment numbers on Grand Bahama will continue to improve. Laroda said, “we know that there’s gonna be some investments along that line of Norwegian Cruises. They’ve already reached out to us actually for prospective job fairs. I think it’s gonna look good for Grand Bahama in terms of employment.”
According to Laroda established companies also play a critical role. He advised that those companies should pay attention to labour laws in order to attract and retain employees. He said, “be mindful of the rights of the workers and the labour laws so that we don’t have all the concerns and complaints about violation of fundamental rights, that’s a part of the Labour Department as well. And also we want the workers to be aware that their productivity and their input into the business is one of the things that’s necessary for the business to be successful.”
Laroda said a successful business and good industrial relations benefit all sides.
